


Eyes Open

by untouchableface



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Gen, Genetic Enhancements, Heavy Angst, Lost Love, Original Fiction, Plot Twists, Science Fiction, Soulmates, Space Stations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-01-31 01:09:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21437695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/untouchableface/pseuds/untouchableface
Summary: A sci-fi twist on the idea of soulmates and lost lovers. Somewhat bleak and angsty.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 2





	Eyes Open

I closed my eyes, and opened the door. 

I stepped out into Earth's atmosphere, my lungs quickly readjusting to the non-recycled air. Somehow, it tasted hollow despite the success of the mission. Cheers of joy surrounded me: my shuttle landing had been flawless, the peace treaties had been signed, war with the Others was no longer on the horizon. All because of us, they said. Our bravery. Our flawless teamwork, our quick thinking. Our synchronicity; that perhaps we had been made from atoms of the same dying star, and our physical bodies carried that memory even when our minds could not recall the shared lifetimes that came before. There was no other logical explanation for how we could have synced our energies so fast, coming together less than a year ago as perfect strangers.

\--

It has been a day since your last transmission, and now I am alone without you here.

They wanted sound-bites, of course, to immediately transmit to everyone's subdermal receivers. On the landing pad, microphones were shoved in my face before my eyes could even adjust to the sunlight. I gave them the answers we practiced, as they swarmed like ants around me. Finally, they returned to their hives, satisfied and gorged on information.

\--

It has been a day and a half since your last transmission, and I wonder if it was all just a fever-dream caused by prolonged isolation. That would almost make more sense, wouldn't it? 

After the press conference, I stole a few moments for myself in my office. They had kept it for me, and everything was exactly as I had left it, but the room now seems foreign and hostile, and far too cluttered, after spending a month living in the pristine precision of the orbiting craft. I gathered what I needed to for the trip home, and locked the door behind me. 

\--

It has been two days since your last transmission, and I feel completely adrift in my isolation.

The night I returned, the Leaders had ordered bonus dopamine surges for everyone to enhance the experience of the sound-bites. Presumably, they wanted everyone to feel what they imagined I was feeling. Even with my neurotransmitters on - I had been too tired to manually shut them off before the surges were pushed - I felt nothing but hollow inside. I felt the dopamine flood in, yes, but just like how our ancestors stopped finding coffee useful, the hormones did nothing to boost my mood. How could I be happy now, without you beside me? 

\--

It has been five days since your last transmission, and they do not suspect a thing. 

If nothing else, all of my training had prepared me for what was now expected of me. There were grand dinners I was forced to attend, a friendly smile to be worn at all times. I got through them while making conversation, and didn't even need to use the muscular enhancements in my cheeks. Radiant, glowing, charming, a natural diplomat. Those were the words that flowed in my wake. If the Leaders suspected anything otherwise, they were too polite to say. Nobody has showed up to haul me away for reconditioning, so I think I am safe now, at least from that. At a couple of the functions, some of the Others even made an appearance as a show of unity. Holographs were taken and broadcast into every home, to celebrate and mark this singular point in history. Though, I heard rumours through some of the backchannels that our synthesizers had trouble replicating the molecular structure of their banquet foods. I wonder if that would be cause enough for war, after all. 

\--

I am tired now. It has been a week since your last transmission. 

My neural pathways are rebelling, despite my failed attempts to reprogram them manually. This is taking all my effort. More and more, anything else I attempt to focus on is replaced by visions of your face, when it rested inches from mine. I can only recall the slope of your closed eyelids, the angle of your cheek, the fine lines across your forehead and in the corners of your eyes. In those moments we spent curled together, I had felt as if your face would be the last thing I saw, though I was much too afraid to tell you that aloud.

\--

My body is failing me. It has been nine days since your last transmission, and I don't know how much longer I can endure this.

The Leaders have ordered me placed under observation, and so I float alone in this transparent tank as the world blurs around me. Everything organic in me is rejecting all of the upgrades that I have spent years collecting. This body was supposed to become a thing of mastery, a thing of beauty, and instead it has become ugly and useless. I cannot recall, cannot feel anything now other than the phantom sensation of your heat radiating alongside my own. The gentle pressure that came with the weight of your arms anchoring me in place on your chest. My receivers have shut themselves off, and my eardrums echo with only the ghost of that soft voice you used when we were alone together, the way you bent your words so that only so that I would hear. You will haunt me until I die.

What they do not deserve to know - or perhaps what I do not want to burden them with - is the repercussion of what happens when two of us sync so closely, the way that we did. Eventually, dying stars all must collapse inward on themselves. Sooner or later it will happen to every pairing, though there is no guarantee as to when. Some lucky few might get years together, but not us.

I am still not sure which one of us moved first when we felt that shift - whether you chose to sacrifice yourself for my sake or whether I was truly selfish until the end.

In mere moments, we had went from sharing a private universe as we lay entwined to that awful barrier stretching between us for the last time. Me, safe in the orbiting craft, and you, as stoic as ever, as you looked away from my eyes, on the wrong side of the airlock. At least your death would come relatively quickly, in the endless black vacuum of space. 

So, I closed my eyes, and opened the door. 


End file.
